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Allow any folder to be synced

Currently if you want to sync files they must be saved to \users<username>\OneDrive. This is way too limiting!!! Need to be able to define any folder in any path to be a synced folder.

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Brent Pearce shared this idea  ·   ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
not right now  ·  Ryan.Zacher responded  · 

Understand the request, but there are no plans for this at this time.

181 comments

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  • Michael commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    Our company wants to switch to OneDrive instead of Syncplicity. Syncplicity can sync files of different partitions without the need to move everything in one folder. Why don't you just implement it?

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    @Ryan.Zacher But why? What is the point to keep the specific folder and not allowing to sync any other folder on my computer?

  • Plaid Radish commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    STILL not able to sync to an external drive. Microsoft, I've cancelled my storage. I now give my money to Google Drive, Dropbox, and Zoolz for cloud storage. They each have acquired a percentage of the funding you previously received. Let me know when you decide to join this generation's technology offerings, and I may consider you, again.

  • TM commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    OMG... I can't believe it isn't already there... no point buying extra space if I can't use it! Please add this feature!

  • Sat commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    it's ridiculous that when so many people wanted this feature very badly, Microsoft is still not able to support this

  • Mohsen commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    I need this feature.Please add to OneDrive. I think adding this feature easy and doesn't need the plan.

  • Brock commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    What worked for me (Mac OS X 10.12.6 Sierra) was to actually move the entire folder I wanted to sync into the OneDrive folder, and then to create a symbolic link where this folder originally was with the folder's original name that points to the folder I just moved. For example, if my OneDriver folder was at /users/myUser/OneDrive and the additional folder I wanted to sync was at /users/myUser/myFolder, I would move this folder to /users/myUser/OneDrive/myFolder, and then run the following from the command line: ln -s /users/myUser/OneDrive/myFolder /users/myUser/myFolder.

    This isn't the cleanest solution, but my goal was to make sure file paths to objects in my folder would remain in tact, and the symbolic link does the trick in all cases I've come across so far. For instance, any hard-coded file paths in code I've written remain functional.

    I don't know if this would work on Windows with "shortcuts" (I think these are the *nix equivalent of a sym link), but it's worth a shot.

    I can't take credit for this solution; I took it from here: https://www.howtogeek.com/204595/how-to-move-special-folders-on-os-x-to-cloud-storage/

  • Jason commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    The following suggestion does not work really well. After the initial sync, files in the link do not get synced again until there are changes in the "onedrive" folder. It seems onedrive only checks files in the "onedrive" folder to look for changes. However, when it syncs, it will sync files in the link too.

    Graham Beech commented · June 16, 2017 11:36 · Flag as inappropriate
    Just incase anyone missed this brilliant solution from evw... this works a treat!

    Open cmd box in admin mod

    1. cd /users/<username>/OneDrive
    2. make a link like this:
    mklink /J <name of folder> <name of folder to sync>

    Problem solved

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    In my view, OneDrive Business was created for business clients using Active Directory and hence able to use group policy objects to implement different settings. Most users of Windows take advantage of the "Shortcut" function to quickly move to a folder. However, this is not implemented on the OS level. In addition to shortcuts, Windows supports two types of symbolic directory links, where posts on the forum has showed. Once you create a symbolic link in the OneDrive folder, it will be seen as any folder by OneDrive. This way, you can link to any drive and folder and even to network folders and you can have as many symbolic links as you need.

    Any organization using AD can then by a group policy simply create any structure with symbolic links in the OneDrive folder, thereby syncing any folder in the network or on the users computer to OneDrive. This feature can also be used together with AD defined folder redirection and would be considered as non-complicated and just ordinary AD administration by an experienced IT staff. And in that environment IT does NOT want the uses to decide what to sync and not sync, as among other issues you have to consider IT security.

    The problem seems to be that "ordinary" users do not have the knowledge to use basic Windows features, like symbolic links, a feature as well found on Unix and Unix like systems, as BSD and Linux (and hence on the Apple operating system, that is based on Linux).

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